The Paris Commercial Court on Friday approved two bids to partially take over the Claire’s brand in France. The company was placed into insolvency administration at the end of July. The staff representatives’ lawyers announced this to the AFP news agency on Monday.
Around 450 of 830 employees will be taken over by two companies, as the lawyers explained. The majority goes to the fashion jewelry retailer June, which has received a license to use the Claire’s brand for ten years. Around 30 employees will be taken over by the Spanish mobile phone case seller La Casa de las Carcasas.
A social plan (PSE) has already been drawn up for employees who are not affected by the takeover. The majority of them are threatened with dismissal.
June will also take over around 140 of the approximately 240 existing Claire’s branches. La Casa de las Carcasas takes over three branches to sell its telephone accessories. Some of the locations not taken over have already been permanently closed.
The court opened insolvency proceedings for Claire’s France at the end of July. The brand is best known for its costume jewelry, piercings and other accessories for teenagers. “The initial takeover plans in early September were very low in terms of jobs saved,” lawyer Eve Ouanson told AFP. “Today’s plans, which save at least half of the jobs, are a lesser evil.”
The management justified the insolvency proceedings with the continuous decline in sales in the branches for several years. This decline was accelerated by US tariffs on Chinese products, which Claire’s relies heavily on. However, according to the most recently published balance sheets, Claire’s France generated a net profit of 1.3 million euros between the end of 2023 and the end of 2024. In the previous financial year the profit was 0.8 million euros.
The Claire’s brand isn’t just struggling in France: its parent company in the United States filed for bankruptcy in August before being taken over by an investment fund. The Spanish subsidiary of Claire’s also declared insolvency in September.
At the beginning of September, the staff representatives reported facts to the judiciary that they described as “serious irregularities in company management”. They accused the US parent company of emptying its coffers through financial flows between the group’s numerous subsidiaries. “There remains a lack of clarity regarding these financial flows,” Khaled Meziani, also a lawyer for the staff association, told AFP.
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